


Assume

by StrangeBlueGlow (orphan_account)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, References to attempted suicide, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 09:41:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/StrangeBlueGlow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos doesn't assume what the vertical scar he'd caught sight of on the inside of Cecil's left wrist is from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Assume

Carlos doesn't like to assume things.

It is unbecoming of a scientist, for one. You need evidence to back up your ideas in science, and when you have enough evidence to back something up properly, it tends to quit being an assumption.

Carlos also isn't so particularly strong in social graces as to be very good at correctly assuming things about people, so he tries not to make a habit of it.

As such, Carlos doesn't assume what the vertical scar he'd caught sight of on the inside of Cecil's left wrist is from. He has thoughts about its possible origins. Quick, fleeting ones, not unlike the glimpses of it that he gets, peeking out from under Cecil's sleeve when it rides up or in the near dark of a bedroom as clothes are shed.

That list of possibilities admittedly dwindles once he catches sight of that scar's twin, smaller and fainter, on the inside of Cecil's right wrist.

However, he still refuses to assume the scars' origins. That there could be just one more reason that there could be a Night Vale without Cecil - that Carlos may have never met or could at any time lose the man who called him perfect and beautiful and fell in love instantly while not minding at all that it took him a year to do the same - scares him more than anything else in Night Vale. And as much as the town had taught him the merits and necessities as well as the dangers of thinking about the unthinkable, this was one thing he would still prefer not to think about.

* * *

Cecil catches Carlos thumbing over it one evening.

A few nights earlier, the scientist had reached over to twine their fingers together and caught the feeling of the too smooth skin. After that he'd gotten in the habit of touching it gently after the sun had gone down and the dry air had lost its heat and Cecil had fallen asleep, taking the opportunity to be thankful that he body next to him was still warm and breathing softly.

"Hey," Cecil murmurs, putting his other hand on top of Carlos's before he can pull it away.

Carlos looks, perhaps rightfully, ashamed, but is comforted that Cecil doesn't seem to want him to pull his hand away. "I'm sorry, Cecil," he says softly, but Cecil shakes his head and takes Carlos's hand in his own, bringing it up to kiss the scientist's fingertips.

"I had lots of silly ideas when I was young," Cecil began to explain, "I thought everyone deserved death. Can you believe that? Oh, to be so idealistic again." The radio host sighed wistfully and Carlos nodded, swallowing shifting closer as Cecil continued the story.

"I was in college. Home for the summer. I had all these big thoughts, and the world was so big, the universe was so big, and I was so small. How could something so small exist? How could something so big exist? I didn't know if any of it was real, or I was real, if it really mattered either way..." Cecil's voice gets distant before he trails off, but he pulls himself back and continues, "...It was the first year without my mother and one night I just found myself with a piece of broken mirror in my hand. 'Someone's going to kill you one day, Cecil, and it will involve a mirror,' she'd said to me. I thought I could prove her right. It's always nice to fulfil an oracle's prophecy, you know." Cecil shrugs as he finishes speaking, as if it is all that simple, and maybe it is.

"What...What stopped you from..." Carlos slides his hand down to gently hold Cecil's wrist again as he tries to think of how to phrase it, "...Not being here anymore?"

Cecil stares reverently at how Carlos holds his wrist as he replies. "My roommate came back with the broom to clean up the mirror, apparently. I just remember waking up in the hospital all stitched up. It was a little embarrassing, really. We didn't bother to replace the mirror and the urge wasn't so very strong after that. I went back to school in fall, and to Europe that spring, eventually realized that I was silly to think I had deserved death already at 22." He laughs a little, then his voice gets quiet. "Sometimes, I still don't know if I'm real or if anything else is or if that even matters..."

Carlos swallows hard. He remembers when he'd only been in town a few months and still wasn't quite used to well, anything yet. But he'd had the radio on, tuned to Cecil's show. The voice emanating from the speakers was clear and strong as ever but was questioning the existence of anything outside himself for a portion of the program. Cecil's voice isn't as strong now as it was then, his non-radio voice never quite is, but this is different, and it makes Carlos's chest go so tight he can barely breathe.

"You are scientifically observable," he says simply after a moment, trying to carefully choose his words and keep his voice steady as he gently squeezes Cecil's wrist, "You have mass and a structure and great enough density to be considered solid. You are affected by as many physical forces as anyone in this town seems to be and reflect appropriate portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. You are also slightly more radioactive than the average human, although less radioactive than most other Night Vale citizens I've ran tests on. You are, in my scientific opinion, undeniably real, as is much, but not all, of what you observe in daily life."

Nodding, Cecil inhales slowly, as if he's not sure if he really accepts the answer but it's good enough for right now.

"I can't pretend to know if it all matters. Maybe - maybe it doesn't, in the grand scheme of things. But in this moment and for as many future moments as can be foreseen, I can tell you that along with your physical matter, you possess meaning and importance to, at the very least, me," Carlos adds, afraid that Cecil may still be slipping too far into a frightening place for the both of them.

He lets go of Cecil's wrist and wraps his arms around him, pulling Cecil close and resting their foreheads together for the point of physical contact.

They stay like that for a long time, laying next to each other, close enough to breathe each other's air. Cecil's hand finds its way into Carlos's hair, and Carlos's finds its way back to Cecil's wrist although he doesn't really want it to.

Eventually he takes solace in being able to hold Cecil at all and the fact that there is still a pulse running beneath the scar.

Cecil stares through Carlos's eyes for a long while, before staring into them for a moment with a small, thankful smile.

Later, he will tell Carlos that he'd tried to think of things he couldn't have possibly imagined, letting Carlos ground him until he'd come back to himself after thinking of mountains and how he could have never had the idea of such a thing himself. Carlos will make a mental note to thank the mountain apologist friend of Cecil's who had showed him a one, and promise to someday take him to see more.

But for now, they both close their eyes and together ease into a gentle sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for [ this kinkmeme prompt](http://nightvalecommunitykink.dreamwidth.org/822.html?thread=440630#cmt440630) about Cecil having suicidal tendencies.
> 
> Also partly inspired by the fic ["Radiocarpal"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/916366) which lead me to my own headcanon of Cecil having suicidal tendencies, which in turn lead me to fill the prompt.


End file.
